While the school board revoked the 24–7 policy, the district is still in court over the matter, according to plaintiffs’ attorney Matt Wolf.
According to Wolf, there are two cases still pending in the federal district court.
One is a class action lawsuit and the other is a First Amendment violation case. Parents, he said, refused to sign a permission form for their students to participate in the policy, which dealt with in-school punishment for out-of-school drug or alcohol offenses.
In the First Amendment case, a parent said they were only signing the permission form while under duress. His daughter, a junior at the time, was subsequently barred from playing on the high school’s lacrosse team.
Both cases are waiting to go to trial at this time, with no future timeline currently set.
Neither case has a stated amount for compensation, Wolf said, but they will accept whatever amount a jury awards.
“We would not have really been seeking compensation had they not recognized this back in 2009 when we first brought it to their attention,” said Wolf. It was only after they refused to rescind the policy that he began seeking damages in the class action lawsuit.
Wolf said he plans to tell the Appellate Division that the school district should stop fighting the case and spending money on it because the case is moot and over.
The revocation of the policy is a result of an August 2012 decision by the commissioner of education, he said.
“They should just give up and fold shop,” Wolf said.
To Board of Education President Steve Weinstein, Wolf is the attorney still fighting the district. As plaintiff in the case, it is his case to dismiss.
“The allegations there are that the 24/7 policy violated the constitutional rights of the particular family as well as others,” said Joe Betley, the attorney representing the Board of Education.
A decision about a similar case in Ramapo in Bergen County is a different issue than the constitutional rights case,” he said. Haddonfield’s 24–7 policy was revoked, he said, due to a lack of belief that it can pass the test under the Ramapo decision.
Betley said the district still believes that the policy was constitutional.
“We’re still confident that we will prevail,” he said.
The case against the district began in 2009 and has been active since.
“I think this is something where they never responded to any effort to resolve these cases. Ever,” Wolf said. “They’ve never offered to settle in any way, shape or form.”
That, he said, forces them to keep the cases open, making the attorneys the only winners.
“It’s really a shame,” he said.
